I was just opening up old .fla's of Lobster Quest to show my roommate and found myself animating a sprite again. If there are still any of you out there wondering what happened to that ol' chestnut, I've posted before about it inflating over time into vaporware.

So I've been out of college for a year now and I'm in the process of moving to Boston. I've decided to use the year ahead to focus on one of my bigger, dreamier concepts and turn it into a big swanky pitch, then peddle it around and see where and how I could get the thing made. Of the concepts I'm considering are two cartoon series, and a game I started - guess how long ago - EIGHT YEARS ago on this website, called Lobster Quest.

I haven't touched this project since before I left for college. That was when I decided there was no way I could get it done on the level I wanted it without investing in some outside help. After that I was taking classes 40 hours a week, and spending every other hour either working on school projects, sleeping, or doing the other things that people in college do - so that just wasn't an option.

Since then the iPad came out - and I don't even have one, mind you - but I can't imagine a better platform for this game than a touch screen tablet. If you've ever played the old demo on this site, you can get a feel for what I mean.

In the old demo, the majority of the player's control was kinda passive. Rather than scrolling along areas, your character, Erk, inhabited a series of small stages. You'd move from stage to stage, sort of like a point and click adventure game, except rather than pointing and clicking, you'd use the arrow keys to move Erk stage by stage. In later demos I built (and rebuilt) you could press A to bring up a selector and choose objects and characters on the stage to interact with. (I only had a grand total of two stages drawn for these later demos, out of around 60-100 the game would take place in).

This control scheme was important to me to hold on to, because I had always imagined it being a story driven adventure, where the appeal of the game would be in your interactions with the characters. It keeps the pace measured while you take part in the story being told, until it brings you to action sequences peppered healthily throughout the game. For those sequences, the gameplay would change to being rhythm and reflex oriented. That's the kind of game I wanted to make.

So, back to the iPad. Personally, I don't think action games and touchscreens mix well. The control on touchscreen games need to be simple, without keeping your fingers hovering over the screen covering up the action. What got me thinking about Lobster Quest again, (this time) was how well the gameplay model would lend itself to touch based control. Instead of relying on the arrow keys, you could just touch or swipe the screen to move to the next area. Instead of bringing up a selector with the A key, or using a mouse, you could just tap things in the environment to interact with them. I think adventure games in general could be a perfect fit for touch screens. If you're a fan of adventure games and want to see them being made again, I think the iPad is a way to bring them back.

Basically, my idea with Lobster Quest is to put enough work into it to create a thorough proof of concept - whether that's a playable demo, or just a video demo - and back it up with a full outline of the plot, characters, and story elements, as well as an estimated cost and production schedule.

I figure, if I'm going to sink some of my time into a big idea this year, it might as well be the one I've already sunk the most thought and time into. It's still an exciting idea to me, because I still think it is something that people will want and enjoy playing.

KEEPIN' THE DREAM ALIVE... Realistically speaking...